He Called It The Herky-Bird

My Dad, Lt. Col. Stanley Kent Bramwell, front and center. Pilot of the C-130 "Hercules" flown in the Vietnam war. In this picture the flight crew are wearing sanitized flight-suits, meaning there are no names, insignia, or other identifying marks, should they be shot down...


My sister was in contact with a man whose father was one of my dad's crew members in the picture above. He sent this in an email to my sister: 
Your father was my father's aircraft commander in Vietnam. My dad was so blessed to have Stanley as his pilot during his time in Vietnam. My dad was having a difficult time with his first aircrew. They were a profane bunch who also drank a lot. My father prayed for assistance and within weeks was re-assigned to your dad's aircraft. I know his reassignment wasn't a coincidence either since both men were LDS.

Lt. Col. Stan Bramwell,  Aircraft Commander of the top secret AC 130 gunship, Spectre. Ubon, Thailand, 1972, Vietnam War.

Dad didn't talk a lot about the war or his time over seas. And when he did talk about it he kind of down-played things, or gave us very sanitized versions of the stories. It must have been kid of hard for him, when he came home from the war, for us kids with our eager eyes saying. "Tell us a war story!" Even as a Jr. in High School I didn't get it (because I was in high school).


One story he did tell us: One of their "jobs" was to fly over the Ho Chi Minh Trail, which was the main supply artery for the Vietcong, and bomb the transports. The Herk could fly low and slow and do a lot of damage. My Dad, as the pilot, said he would try to buzz over the convoys as a warning and would see the men and drivers run off into the jungle. Then they would fly over again and bomb the heck out of the trucks and supplies.


That's the kind of a man he was.